Augustine of Hippo

This man, sainted by the Roman Church, lived from 354 to 430 AD. He was a Bishop of the Roman Church in North Africa. I am not sure he would have approved of his being “sainted” by the Romans, but, who knows. Of patron saints, I am sure he would have disapproved. Why am I so sure? Augustine was a prolific writer and also a theologian. One of the books he wrote was The City of God. What follows is a passage from it.The passage can be found in Book IV, page 144.

Next let us ask, if they please, out of so great a crowd of gods which the Romans worship, whom in especial, or what gods they believe to have extended and preserved that empire. Now, surely of this work, which is so excellent and so very full of the highest dignity, they dare not ascribe any part to the goddess Cloacina, or to Volupia, who has her appellation from voluptuousness; or to Libentia, who has her name from lust; or to Vaticanus who presides over the screaming of infants; or to Cunina, who rules over their cradles. But how is it possible to recount in one part of this book all the names of gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely comprise in great volumes, distributing among these divinities their peculiar offices about single things?

Pagan Rome had thousands of gods.There were gods for every little thing.They had one god for planting seed, one for germinating it, one for sprouting it, another for growing it and so on. Thousands of gods existed to grant them “benefits.” Augustine says that Pagan Rome had prostituted itself to demons!

So how does this prove that he would have disapproved of the concept of “patron saints?” It is because the Roman Church has “replaced” all of these gods with patron saints. Maybe, in keeping with the concept of jabberwocky, it would be best to say that the Roman Church just renamed them as they are still performing the same “godly” functions.

The patron saints index located on the internet at http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm lists 5,376 saints and 2,364 topics. Incidentally, Ampibolus (St. Cloak), Orestes (St. Mountain) and Veronica (Holy Handkerchief) are listed.

What are these topics? They are a list of sites or things for which one (or more) of the 5,376 saints is patron.Patron means father, protector, and benefactor. Consider that word father. Since the patron saint is supposedly helping from heaven, this word “patron” seems to imply the replacement of God in some respects. Jesus said:

And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven (Matthew 23:9 ASV).

This list of saints mated to patron duties in protecting the topics is suspiciously close to Pagan Rome’s gods that Augustine wrote about. In fact, throughout the Roman Church’s history, they blended the existing pagan religions with their religion in order to be politically correct. The blending was successful, they did not have to “bear the cross” and they became pagan. None of the sacraments are based upon the Word of God, and the whole issue of Mary and the saints is fiction. As Augustine stated, Pagan Rome had prostituted itself to demons. Well, it is obvious to me that the Roman Church has followed suit.